The Struggling Cleveland Indians

Winners of six of their last 40 games, but they don't look like a bad team when they play the Pretenders. They, in fact, play like the team that wants to advance to post-season. 

Justin Masterson (11-12, 4.84 ERA) allowed two runs in six innings.Four relievers finished off the P's. Their one-man offense (Miguel Cabrera, two-run homer) wasn't enough. 

Fortunately for the Pretenders, the White Sox don't want the division either. They lost to the Minnesota Vikings 18-9 at Soldier Field,  and keep their one game AL Central lead. But the Orioles beat the team they had to (12-0 over the Toronto Argos at CNE Stadium) and moved into a first place AL East tie with the Yankees; while playing like they're the ones who want that bridesmaid's dress.

Al Alburquerque, back after blowing his arm out throwing too many sliders, retired all four hitters he faced. His presence on the roster creates another amazing, incredible major league first: first ever team in the modern era with a battery whose initials are AA.

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Before the game, The Resident Managerial Genius suggested that the fans, if they didn't like his batting order (Fielder at DH, Jackson sitting, Delmon Young their hottest hitter sitting), submit their own. 

Okay, then: 

Jackson, CF, no more sitting, that's why you give him days off in July and August

Dewayne Wise, RF

Cabrera, 1B

Fielder, DH

Young, LF, no more sitting your hottest hitter, days off in Jul and Aug

Placido Polanco, 2B

Peralta, SS

Infante, 3B

Rob Brantly, C

It's Tribe Time Again

They let Corey Kluber off the hook in the first inning, and it cost them the game. 

Delmon Young had singled in a run, and the sacks were filled for Brennan Boesch. BB hit into a double play. Inning over. 

Kluber settled down, gave up one additional run in six innings, and got his first major league win. Final 3-2 Indians; yet another winnable game that the lack of a timely it or two turned into yet another one run loss. 

Alex Avila hit into a double play to end the game, the Pretenders' MLB leading 132nd DP of the season. He's too nice a guy to appear on a wanted poster, but he's getting there (.241 at day's end, and in a slump that started in April).

Allowing unearned runs is something else the P's lead MLB in, and baseball's 20th best defense let in two more today, the only two runs Anibal Sanchez allowed in six innings. Pitched Well Enough To Win But Didn't.

Put It On The Board, Yeeeesss !!!

Delmon Young's three run homer in the sixth, that is, that broke up the pitching battle between Verlander and Sale and gave the Tigers a 4-1 lead. 

Brennan Boesch, owner of the only homer Sale had allowed to a lefty this season, inserted in the lineup for that exact reason, hit another in the fifth to tie the score at one. 

Verlander and Scherzer have become a latter-day Koufax and Drysdale rotation pairing, insuring trouble for any opponent in a short series. JV's line tonight: eight innings, four hits, two walks, 11 strikeouts. Amazing, as always.

K and D had Ron Perranoski to close out the enemy. V and S have Jose Valverde splashing paint remover over their masterpieces. After retiring the first two Sox in the ninth, he allowed three singles and a run. ("It's ALWAYS this way ..." -- Iggy Pop, "Not Right."). If Austin Jackson hadn't been fast enough to chase down Orlando Hudson's liner, the game would have been tied, and JV's work of art in the trash can. 

A win by any other name is still a win,  and the three game sweep gets the Tigers back even with the Pale Hose, in first with identical 72-61 records.

 

Haha White Sox! Schadenfreude!

There exists the temptation to start every post for a Scherzer game with his pitching line, since each one lately has been so amazing. Stats often don't tell the story. His are the exception.

Tonight's: eight innings, four hits, no runs, one walk, nine strikeouts, win number 15. Tigers win 5-1, and cut the Pale Hose's lead in the AL Central to one game.

Delmon Young stayed hot, going 2 for 4 with a triple -- one of four Tiger three-base hits -- and a solo homer in the seventh that provided the always vital insurance run.

Right fielder Avisail Garcia, the first player in MLB history with that first name, went 1 for 3 with one RBI in his Show debut. 

Tomorrow, it's Sale vs. Verlander in the Sunday night ESPN game with first place on the line.

Least Valuable Player

The same kind of timely hit that would have won a game or three in Kansas City won one at Comerica. 

In tonight's seventh inning, with the score even at four, Delmon Young hit a bases-clearing double of White Sox starter Jake Peavey. 

Benoit and Valverde, both experiencing Terry McMillan Effect -- gotten their grooves back -- blanked the Sox to preserve a 7-4 win.

At the All Star break Jayson Stark, who comments about baseball for ESPN and who knows a lot more about baseball than I do despite being half my age, declared Delmon Young the America League's first-half Least Valuable Player. 

In August, the AL LVP hit .304 with three homers and 14 RBIs, not counting the homer and two RBIs he lost to the umperors in KC. If he hadn't done You Know What in New York, he might get a few votes for AL Player of the Month for August. 

Yet the sniping continues, because of You Know What, in sports section reader forums. 

So what's say y'all just back off him and let him play ball, okay? 

He can walk after this season, but I'd bring him back. 

Maggie Speaks

Good morning. This is Maggie, Tom's friend. He said I could write the blog post today, since the Tigers played like they were asleep (they lost 3-2) and couldn't wait to get on the plane and go back home. 

I didn't see the game. So I will give you our favorite recipe for fish and chips. 

We really don't have a recipe. We pour a little cooking oil in an aluminum pan, and coat the fish with McCormick's Fish And Chips batter mix straight from the box. We don't use water. We cook them at 350, about ten minutes each side. They taste great. They taste like fish, not like the ingredients. 

For chips, we use baking potatoes and cook them in bacon grease that we save from breakfast. Sprinkle on a little salt and pepper, serve them hot with fish, and you can't have a better dinner. 

Tom always helps cook dinner, and clean up afterwards. I think men who like to help out in the kitchen are extremely sexy. 

Thank you for reading my recipe, and I hope the Tigers play better tomorrow night.

Yig Tibbikim

Anibal Sanchez showed the baseball world why the Tigers traded for him. Seven innings, seven hits one run, zero walks. Good enough to win on any other night. 

But they should have also traded for some strapping lad, preferably one who hits right-handed, who could supply a timely hit or three, and knock one into the fountains now and then. 

Bruch Chen blanked the Pretenderso n four hits over eight innings.Greg Holland permitted two hits, but no runs, in the ninth when a timely hit would have meant the difference between triumph and embarrassment. 

You've got to be kidding me. 

YGTBKM has become Price and Dickerson's favorite phrase to drop into the radio description of yet another play, or series of events, that costs the Pretenders a winnable game.. They used it a few times during yesterday's 9-8 disaster, and got it out again tonight.You could make a word out of it. Better, two words. Yig tibbikim.

The game's only run scored on a soft grounder by Eric Hosmer, soft s bread fresh from the oven. Yig tibbikim.

The Game That Got Away

What a night for Delmon Young! Two home runs, five RBIs including a two-run shot that gave the Tigers an 11-9 lead in the ninth.

But the final was 9-8 Royals, you say, having either watched the game or checked MLB for updates. 

That's because the umperors, after reviewing video, called the ball foul. Umperors 1, Pretenders 0. 

The phantom homer wouldn't have mattered, of course, had the P's been able to take care of business earlier.

Ten of the first sixteen Royals hit safely off Justin Verlander. The eight runs he allowed, in 5.2 innings, equal the most he's ever given up in one game.

But the P's peckitty-pecked their way back to an 8-8 tie.

In the eighth, Phil Coke, brought in to get a left-handed hitter (Mike Moustakis) out, gave up a double that put KC up by one. 

3.72 doesn't look bad, but 65 hits in 48 innings is not acceptable for a situational lefty. And 48 innings means he's had the opportunities.In the last twelve, he's given up at least one hit.

The White Sox? They lost, 6-0 in Baltimore. 

Come Sunday September 30, once the Orioles and Athletics have clinched the wild cards, and the Sox the Central, this one will be The Game That Got Away.

Help From Our Friends, I Think

Orioles 4, White Sox 3 at Camden Yards. So we gain a half game on the Pale Hose, but lose a half game in the Bridesmaid standings to Los Birdos. 

Attendance for this game between the first place Sox and the serious post-season talking Orioles, on their way to their first winning season since 1997: 10, 995. 

Baltimore used to be a great baseball town. 

When the Tigers play there, it's hard to tell via the radio who's the home team, since so many people from Michigan show up to cheer for the enemy.

Bleepin Day Baseball !!!

Eighty five percent of the world's workin! The other fifteen's out at the bleepin beach listenin to the game on the radio! It's a playground for the bleep-bleepers -- 

Uhh . . . but it's Sunday . . . ? 

Well . . . that's no excuse. It's still a tough American League Central. (It's a tough American League, period.) 

Indeed it is, and that makes having Scherzer and Verlander atop the rotation reassuring. 

Scherzer starts have become Verlander-like. You'd better watch, because amazing things usually happen. 

And amazing Max was this hot Sunday at Comerica, allowing one run and four hits through seven, while striking out nine Seraphim. The outing dropped his ERA to 4.13, and a few more like it will keep him from the dubious distinction of striking out eleven per nine innings with an ERA over four.

The win was his 14th. Nine strikeouts give him 195 -- three more than Verlander -- and first place among all starting pitchers.

Prince Fielder and Delmon Young homered back-to-back in the sixth off Johan Santana, into the same wind that kept kites aloft at the beach. Final: Tigers 5, Seraphs 1; and this portion of the make-hay-while-the-wind-blows home stand thus ends with six wins and three losses. Enormously better than expected, after it began with two of three dropped to the Orioles.

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Seraph, plural seraphim, noun, a type of celestial creature first mentioned in the Old Testament. In Christianity, they are the highest order of angels.

When Your Blogger was a lad and the Los Angeles Angels were a new expansion team, sports writers routinely called them "Seraphs." Like they do "Halos" now. I thought Seraph was a word for people from California. Like "Yankee" for New Englanders, or"Yooper"  for anyone who lived north of the Mackinac Bridge.

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And, after venturing into theology and the etymology of English, one naturally starts to wonder what Lee Elia is doing. 

Google search him and most of what you find is about The Rant. A baseball lifer, and what he's most known for happened off the field. Little is mentioned about, at age 73 in 2011, his appointment as a spring hitting coach with the Braves, and a special assistant to GM Frank Wren. 

Ungrateful For Small Miracles

The Pretenders committed three errors in the first five innings, that led to two unearned runs and an early 3-0 Angel lead. 

Baseball's 20th best defense has allowed 61 unearned runs. By comparison, the two worst fielding teams, the Rockies and Orioles, have allowed  53 and 54, respectively. Saving them so far has been the pitchers' knack for piling up strikeouts (they're fifth out of 30 teams). The fewer chances the fielders get to touch the ball, the better. 

It is thus with small satisfaction that Your Baseball Blogger mentions the fifth inning RBI knocks, a Young double and Dirks single, the eighth inning three-run miracle highlighted by Peralta's two-run double, and Drew Smyly's nice effort (six innings, four hits, one earned run) in place of the tweaked Doug Fister.

Small satisfaction also for all five gifts from Heaven coming with two out. 

Because kicking it around is going to cost them, in some game they'll really need to have a shot at that one game play-in.

 

GRINK-eee

Once Zack Grienke got the lead, there was nothing to do but ... well, uh ... leave. Just turn the dial. Check on the other games. (Change it, now, please?) 

That we did, and all we missed was Miguel Cabrera's 32nd homer, hit naturally with no one on, in the eighth to make it 2-1 and give the 39K sheeple in attendance hope that the others might remember what baseball bats are for and score some runs. 

Releivers Scott Downs and Garrett Richards finished off the Pretenders who, like  properly constructed electrical circuit, offered no resistance. 

Again, a starter's only mistake cost him the game. YBB has fallen back on that baseball cliche because it's happened often lately. Howie Kendrick hit a Porcello fastball for a two-out double in the sixth, plating Meicir Isturis and Mike Trumbo. Torii Hunter having extended the frame with a take-out slide that prevented an inning ending double play. 

Those other games? Down the dial where the White Sox play, where hitters know what baseball bats are for, the Pale Hose got two in the ninth for a 9-8 walkoff win over the Mariners, ending the M's eight game win streak. The win and Pretenders' loss -- of a game one or two well-placed hits would have won -- moves the P's back to 2.5 out in the division, and 2.5 out in the bridesmaid race.

How Fortunate?

The tying run scored in the eighth on a wild pitch. 

Austin Jackson kept the score tied at two with a highlight lay-out catch in the 10th. 

The winning run scored in the 11th on a two-out Alex Avila liner that Jays' right fielder Anthony Gose played into a single, going for the play at the plate and not the diving third out catch. 

If not either, the game might still be under way, with Jeff Baker pitching the 22nd inning. 

Justin Verlander went nine and got eight of the last twelve outs on strikeouts. His only mistake was the pitch Edwin Encarnacion hit out in the fourth with Colby Rasmus on. When you're pitching for the Pretenders, your only mistake could easily cost you the game. Fortunately for JV, it didn't. For yet another excellent outing, he gets yet another no decision. 

The P's showed no interest in scoring off J.A. Happ, who blanked them for 7 1-3 innings. (The Astros traded this guy away? That's the sort of player move that explains why they're on the way to a 110 loss season.) 

But they win 3-2, and go to ten over OM. At day's end, the W is all that's really important. 

The season-long offensive drought, and thus the P's season-long hang-on by their fingernails in either the Central or Bridesmaid race, can be boiled down to one AB in today's seventh inning. 

With Peralta on second and the score 2-0 Jays, and a hit desperately needed from some seasoned slugger to wake up the offense, right fielder Jeff Baker strode plateward.

Baker, acquired on August 5 from the Cubs for two (yes, two) players to be named later, started the day at .167 and had done nothing worth a mention in this blog. 

He struck out swinging, his third whiff of the afternoon, and the rally died. 

Fortunately for everyone wearing the Olde English "D," the game's outcome didn't -- if you'll pardon the reference -- HINGE on that at bat. 

Bartolo / Very Extremely Fortunate

Tested positive for Test Tosterone, suspended for the season. "He was having a remarkably good year ..." (10 wins at age 39,  4-1 / 1.57 in his last five starts). Now we know why! Haha A's! Schadenfreude! His apology, ghostwritten by an underling in the PR department, will be issued later this afternoon.  

He's the only major league player whose last name is a punctuation symbol.  Assuming  he's half the player he would have been without supplements, shouldn't his name be Bartolo Semi-Colon?

Just thinking out loud ... 

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Anibel Sanchez didn't exactly shut down the Blue Jays, but did earn his second win as a Tiger by limiting the Jays' makeshift lineup, missing four regulars, to five hits and two runs in 6.2 innings. 

His own error in the sixth -- a wild pickoff throw -- allowed Rajai Davis to take third. Davis scored on a single by Edwin Encarnacion who moved to second on an error charged to Andy Dirks, whose throw from right Alex Avila couldn't handle. Fortunately for the Pretenders, once they were done throwing the ball around, they still had a 2-1 lead. 

A second Dirks error, on a Moises Sierra single, put the tying and go-ahead runs on third and second, respectively. Fortunately for the P's, Austin Jackson ran down Yorvit Torrealba's deep drive for the third out. 

Fortunately for the slugging P's, they manufactured a third run in the sixth, on an error (Jackson reaching first), sacrifice (Infante), intentional walk (Cabrera) and single (Fielder).

Like the previous game, this one had a curious ending. Last night, Encarnacion was ruled out on strikes, on appeal to first base ump Tom Hallion (good call!) for the last out. Tonight, with two down in the ninth, Omar Vizquel, who had pinch-hit a single and represented the tying run, took off for second. Fortunately for the P's, Avila threw out the 45 year old Vizquel to put this one in the W column. 

Unfortunately for the P's, the White Sox keep winning. Their 2-1 win over the Yankees at Cellphone Provider Field completed a three-game sweep of the New Yorkers and kept them 2 1-2 games ahead of the men from Motown. 

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Bartolo says he's sorry but, as with everyone who gets caught, they're only sorry because they got caught. Career over; another name permanently removed from the list of active former Montreal Expos players.

Extremely Fortunate / 420 Friendly Indians

If the opposing pitcher walks six in the first two innings, you'd better score more than three runs. You'd better, in fact, send him to the showers before he has a chance to regroup and start getting people out.

Ricky Romero was extremely fortunate to leave the second inning down only 3-0. 

He posted zeroes in the third, fourth, and fifth. Walks got him into trouble again in the sixth, and he came out having issued eight free passes on the night. The Blue Jays through six were fortunate to be losing only 5-1.

They scored two in the eighth, off Dotel and the new Public Enemy #1 out of the pen, Phil Coke. Missed scoring chances in the early innings, and ten runners left on base, loomed larger with each Jays run. 

Mr. Ripley would find it hard to believe that Ben Wah and Val Verde came in to restore order, but they did; Ben getting a hold and Val the save. The only blemish being a liner that Quentin Berry misplayed into a leadoff double in the ninth.

The Pretenders should consider themselves extremely fortunate to win this one 5-3. 

But 39K sheeple left Comerica wrapped in smug assurance, that our guys really showed their guys how the game of baseball is played.

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In the wee hours of tomorrow morning back east, the Tribe lost at Seattle -- King Felix dispatching them with ease -- and are now 4-20 since the two homers off Verlander "what happened in the seventh inning?" game played July 26, when they were still in both the division and bridesmaid races.

More Reasons Why

How can you walk the ninth place hitter who's hitting .097? With two out?

Taylor Teagarden, the Tiger crusher, was the guy, in this afternoon's second inning. With the inning thus extended and the lineup turned over, Nick Markakia and J.J. Hardy followed with two-run doubles, erasing 80 percent of Doug Fister's 5-0 lead.

In the fourth, Nate McLouth tripled in Markakis and Hardy, who had reached base via -- yes, that's right -- walks, and the very beatable lately Pretenders were as good as beaten. (Final: Them 7, Us 5.)

It was Fister's worst outing as a Tiger (Pretender): 3.2 innings, eight hits, seven runs. Also the second game in a row in which he's allowed four runs in one inning.

Why It's Not Going To Happen

Orioles starter Zach Britton has an ERA over eight, and the O's are the league's worst fielding team.

Three hours later, his ERA is down to six, his teammates have turned three snappy rally-killing double plays, and the O's have a 3-2 win. 

The only mistake Rick Porcello made cost him the game. Chris Davis hit it out with two on in the seventh. 

Meanwhile, the Pretenders played Beavis-And-Butthead ball. It looked like they would never score. Peralta singled in two in the eighth, but Jim Johnson was waiting, and he shut the P's down on two dribblers and one soft fly ball. 

If Prince Fielder is up with no one on, he'll get pitched around because five through nine have been so ineffective. Delmon Young, hitting behind Prince and Cabrera and Jackson/Berry all season, should have a lot more than 65 RBIs in mid-August. Alex Avila (.253) is a mystery. Watching the player formerly known as Bash hit makes you cry, and not from hay fever. Jhonny Groundout proved last year that he can do better than .261

So ineffective, in fact, that one through four won't (can't) carry them to post-season.

Things You May Never See Again

Justin Verlander issuing three walks in one inning (the third, in which the O's tied the score at 1-1.) 

Anyone hitting a ball where Prince Fielder did in the sixth, over the center field shrubbery (Nee! Nee!) and retired numbers wall, and into the standing room fans (measured at 462 feet, the first of two two-run shots by the Prince of Bop.) 

A baserunner (Jhonny Peralta) called out at first on a close play, and then ruled safe after the umps conferred and changed their minds. (Too bad they didn't do that for Armando Galarraga, but there have been enough perfect games lately). And a first baseman (Mark Reynolds) getting tossed for throwing his glove to the turf. You can't blame him, because replays indicated Peralta was out by plenty. Umperors 1, Orioles 0. 

The win (5-3) and White Sox loss at KC move the Tigers to 1.5 games out in the AL Central, and into a tie with the O's and D-Rays in the AL Bridesmaid standings. 

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The infield fly rule also applies re the throwing-of-the bouquet ritual at weddings (tomorrow being Saturday). The bride is out and all bridesmaids may tag up and advance at their own risk. But the one who brought a catcher's mitt, she's the one who's really tired of being single.

When White Moths Are On The Wing

Traveling photographer Robert Kincaid discovers that farm-bound housewife Francesca Johnson fills her afternoons not with soap operas, or real operas, but with with Chicago Cubs games, at a time (1965) when the Cubs still play 81 home day games a season. So, instead of building a fire and curling up in a blanket, on the night of an oppressively hot mid-August Iowa day, they sit on the porch are read Yeats, and listen to the Cubs game (they're out west and on late). All this takes place in the movie "The Baseball Games Of Madison County." Which is why that movie has never been made, and why Your Cynical Baseball Blogger would never make it as a writer of screenplays.

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The Tigers play 15 of their next 18 at home, where they're 11 over .500. Only a weekend road trip to KC breaks the string of home games. 

Three of the next ten calendar days are off days. and that's good news for the pitching staff, and especially the battered bullpen, in the dog days of summer. 

Now, then, is the time for the Tigers to put some distance between themselves and the AL Cantral pack, or at least the other would-be bridesmaids.

The mystery remains, though: Why a team with three of the league's top starters (Verlander, Scherzer, and Fister), and Jackson, Cabrera, and Fielder in its lineup doesn't already have its division pretty much wrapped up.

Max, The King, The Melkman, And Fausto

What a work of art, this afternoon's effort by Max Scherzer. You could frame it and hang it in the Louvre. Not in the same room with the Mona Lisa, but in there somewhere. 

He walked Morneau and Doumit to lead off the second, but then fanned the side. He got seven more Twins while allowing only four hits and -- we always like to point this out, because it's important -- zero walks.

The ten Ks give Scherzer 178 for the season, best in baseball, three more than R.A. Dickey and four more than Felix Hernandez and Justin Verlander by day's end. 

Miguel Cabrera entered the Tiger record book with his first inning homer, his 30th, making him the first Tiger to have 30 in five straight years. (Final: 5-1 Tigers.) 

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King Felix pitched a perfect game today, in the obscurity of Wednesday afternoon out west, at Safeco Field, that I got home in time to hear the last half inning of. He whiffed twelve D-Rays and didn't allow as much as a hot line drive. Another perfect game ... that's nice, third this season, second at Safeco, and second against the otherwise very good D-Rays in the last three years (Mark Buehrle perfected them in July 2009). 

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One less Cabrera in the major leagues for the rest of the season.  While Scherzer and The King were authoring their masterpieces, news broke that Melky Cabrera had tested positive for testosterone supplements and had been suspended for 50 games. That's five games into post-season, but the Giants won't make it now. No more Melkman. Hahaha Giants! Schadenfreude! 

Cabrera had a breakout season last year with the Royals (now we know why), was mysteriously traded to the Giants (now we know why) and was having an out of nowhere season this year (.346 average, All-Star Game MVP, now we know why, cheating done the Melky way.) 

But the MLB story didn't mention supplements. All it said was that he had "tested positive for testosterone." Something every man's body produces. So does that mean, I wondered, that they're all guilty? Season over, let's all go home? 

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You can go for two weeks and not see anything interesting, and that it all happpens on the same day. The Pitcher Formerly Known As Fausto Carmona started his first game in two years, for the Indians at Anaheim tonight.  Renamed Roberto Hernandez, he got through the first but gave up three dinkers in the second. The Tribe defense then betrayed him, committing three errors and what should have been a fourth. Only five runs scored, but the Indians absorbed yet another ugly loss, 8-0).

Maggie asked me why he didn't change his name to a symbol, like Prince did. Maybe a punctuation mark?  I told her that punctuation marks aren't allowed in box scores, and that I thought I smelled food burning downstairs. What ever happened to the sweet, uncomplicated girl I used to know?